The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-07-14
PAUL IN THE BASKET.
Rev. DR.. Taimage breaches at Marha's
Vineyard.

Great Results Hang on Apparently Slender
Circumstances-The Casual, the Aool-
dental Are Parts OF Great Plan-An
Island Between Two EternIties.
MATTHIAS VINEYARD, Mass, July s.
Many hundred of Brooklyn Tabernacle
people and their friends have made pill
grimage to this place. It is one point in
an excursion Of six days taking in New
port, Nantucket, and this island. The
Rev. I. De Witt Talmage, DID,, preached
here this morning in the great camp-meet-
ing tabernacle. Thousands Of people were
present from all parts of New England.
The music was conducted by band.
DIR. Talmage's text was: Through o
window in a basement was l let down by
the wall. III Cor. xi. 80. He said:
Sermons on Paul in Jail, Paul on Mars
Hill, Paul in the sAipwreck, Paul before
tho SRnhedrim, Paul before Felix are
plentiful, bat in my text we have Paul in
basket. Damascus is city of white and
glistening architecture, sometimes called
"the eye of the East" sometimes called "a
pearl surrounded by emeralds," at one
time distinguished for swords Of the best
material called Damascus blades, and up
holstery of richest fabric called damasks.
A horseman by the name Of Saul, riding
toward this city, had been thrown from
the saddle. The horse had dropped under
o fash from the sky, which at the same
time was so bright it blinded the rider for
many days, and, think, SO permanently
injured his eyesight that this defect of
Wis on became the thorn in the flesh he
afterward spenks Of. He started for
Damascus to butcher Christians, bat after
that hard fall from his horse he was
changed man and reached Christ in
Damascus till the city was shaken to its
foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his ar
rest, and the popular cry is "Kill him! kill
him!" The city is surrounded by high
wall and the gates are watched by the
police lest the Cicilian preacher escape.
Many of the houses are built on the wall,
and their balconies projected clear over
and lowered above the gardens outside. It
was customary to lower baskets out of
these balconies and pull up fruit and
flowers from the gardens. To this day
visitors at the monastery at Mount Sinai
are lifted and let down In baskets. De-
tectives prowled around from house to
house looking for Paul, but his friends hid
him, now in one place now In another.
He is no coward, ss fifty incidents in his
life demonstrates. But he feels his work
is not done yet, and 80 he evades assassi-
nation. as that preacher herep" the
feaming mob shout at one house door.
"Is that fanatic here?" the police shout at
another house door. Sometimes on the
street incognito he passes through crowd
of clenched fists and sometimes he secretes
himself on the housetops. At last the in
furiated populace get on sure track of him.
Thau haVa YNnoifiwa avi6anCo tbot ha iV1
the house of one of the Christians, the
balcony of whose home reaches over the
wall. "Here he is! Here he isl" The
vociferetion and blasphemy and bowling
of the pursuers are at the front door.
They break IN. "Fetch out that gospel
izer, and let us hang his head on the city
gate. Where is he?" The emergency was
terrible. Providentially there was good
stout basket in the house. Paul's friends
fastened rope to the basket. Paul steps
into it. The basket is lifted 10 the edge of
the balcony on the wall. and then while
Paul holds on to the rope with both hands
his friends lower away, carefully and eau
tiously, slowly but surely, further down
and further down, until the basket strikes
the earth and the apostle steps out and
afoot, and alone starts on that famous
missionary tour, the story Of which has
astonished earth and heaven. Appropriate
entry intoP auls diary of travels: Through
window in basket was let down by the
wall,
Observe, first, on what slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened to that lowering
basket never knew how much would depend
upon the strength of it. How if it had
been broken and the apostles life had been
l.. i tak. i. 90
the Christian Church? All that magnii-
cent missionary work in Pamphilia, Cap
padocia, Galatia, Macedonia would never
have been accomplished. All his writings
that make up so indispensable and en-
chanting a part of the New Testament
would never have been written. The story
of resurrection would never have been so
gloriously told as he toldit. That example
of heroic and triumphant endurance at
Philippi, in the Mediterranean Euroclydon,
under fiagellation and at his beheading
would not have kindled the courage of ten
thousand martyrdoms. But that rope
holding that basket, how much depended
on It'll So, again and again, great results
have hung on what seemed slender circum-
stances.
Did ever ship of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such important pas
senger as had once boat of leaves from
tatfrail to stern, only three or four feet,
the vessel made waterproof by a coat of
bitumen, and floating on the Nile with the
infant lawgiver of the Jews on board?
What If some crocodile should crunch itp
What if some of the cattle wading in for a
drink should sink it? Vessels Of war some-
times carry forty guns looking through the
port holes, ready to open battle. But that
Tiny craft on the Nile seems to be armed
with all the guns Of thunder that bonn
barded Sinai at the law-giving. On how
fragile craft sailed how much historical i'm
portance! ..H
The parsonage at Epworth, England, is
on fire in the night, and the father rushed
through the hallway for the rescue of his
children. Seven children are out and safe
on the ground, but one remains in the con-
suming building. That one wakes, and
finding his bed on fire and the building
crumbling, comes to the window, and two
peasants make ladder of their bodies, one
other, and down the human ladder the boy
descends-John Wesley. If you would
know how much depended on that ladder
of peasants, ask the millions of Metho-
dists on both sides of the sea. Ask their
mission stations all around the world. Ask
their hundreds of thousands already as
cended to join their founder who would
have perished but for the living stairs of
peasants shoulders. '-
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn Is
land, and right in the midst of surrounding
cannibalism and squalor the passengers
discovered Christian colony of churches
and schools and beautiful homes and high
est style OF religion and civilization. For
fifty years no missionary and no Christian
influence had landed there. Why this
oasis of light amid desert ofheathendom2
Sixty years before ship had met disaster
and one Of the sailors, unable to save any
thing else, went to his trunk and took out q